World War Z_ An Oral History of the Zombie War ( PDFDrive )

successful as the U.S. strategy was, its most resounding triumph was allowing Fidel to use our
northern oppressor as an excuse to remain in power. “You see how hard your life is,” he would say.
“The blockade has done this to you, the Yankees have done this to you, and without me, they would
be storming our beaches even now!” He was brilliant, Machiavelli’s most favored son. He knew we
would never remove him while the enemy was at the gates. And so we endured the hardships and
the oppression, the long lines and the hushed voices. This was the Cuba I grew up in, the only Cuba
I could ever imagine. That is, until the dead began to rise.
Cases were small and immediately contained, mostly Chinese refugees and a few European
businessmen. Travel from the United States was still largely prohibited, so we were spared the
initial blow of first-wave mass migration. The repressive nature of our fortress society allowed the
government to take steps to ensure that the infection was never allowed to spread. All internal
travel was suspended, and both the regular army and territorial militias were mobilized. Because
Cuba had such a high percentage of doctors per capita, our leader knew the true nature of the
infection weeks after the first outbreak was reported.
By the time of the Great Panic, when the world finally woke up to the nightmare breaking down
their doors, Cuba had already prepared itself for war.
The simple fact of geography spared us the danger of large-scale, overland swarms. Our
invaders came from the sea, specifically from an armada of boat people. Not only did they bring
the contagion, as we have seen throughout the world, there were also those who believed in ruling
their new homes as modern-day conquistadors.
Look at what happened in Iceland, a prewar paradise, so safe and secure they never found the
need to maintain a standing army. What could they do when the American military withdrew? How
could they stop the torrent of refugees from Europe and western Russia? Is it no mystery how that
once idyllic arctic haven became a cauldron of frozen blood, and why, to this day, it is still the most
heavily infested White Zone on the planet? That could have been us, easily, had it not been for the
example set by our brothers in the smaller Windward and Leeward Islands.
Those men and women, from Anguilla to Trinidad, can proudly take their place as some of the
greatest heroes of the war. They first eradicated multiple outbreaks along their archipelago, then,
with barely a moment to catch their collective breaths, repelled not only seaborne zombies, but an
endless flood of human invaders, too. They spilled their blood so that we did not have to. They
forced our would-be latifundista to reconsider their plans for conquest, and realize that if a few
civilians armed with nothing but small arms and machetes could defend their homelands so
tenaciously, what would they find on the shores of a country armed with everything from main
battle tanks to radar-guided antiship missiles?
Naturally, the inhabitants of the Lesser Antilles were not fighting for the best interests of the
Cuban people, but their sacrifices did allow us the luxury of setting our own terms. Any seeking
sanctuary would find themselves greeted with the saying so common among Norteamericano
parents, “While under my roof, you will obey my rules.”
Not all of the refugees were Yankees; we had our share from mainland Latin America, from
Africa, and western Europe, Spain especially—many Spaniards and Canadians had visited Cuba
either on business or holiday. I had gotten to know a few of them before the war, nice people,
polite, so different from the East Germans of my youth who used to toss handfuls of candy in the
air and laugh while we children scrambled for it like rats.
The majority of our boat people, however, originated from the United States. Every day more